---- Chapter 7 The atmosphere in the Ritz-Carlton ballroom was frozen. Reporters stood in stunned silence, their microphones forgotten in their hands. They swarmed Ignatz. "Mr. Turner, was Genevieve Ball really Arlington Foley's daughter?" "Were you aware of her identity when you got engaged to Ms. Hooper?" Ignatz stood paralyzed, his eyes fixed on the empty doorway where | had disappeared. His hand, forgotten at his side, clenched and unclenched. Everleigh, still reeling from the shock, let out a small, pained whimper. Tears welled in her eyes. She leaned against Ignatz, her face a picture of wronged innocence, but her eyes, when she thought no one was looking, glittered with pure hatred Just then, her agent, a frantic-looking man named Leo, burst into the room, his face ashen. Everleigh saw him and plastered on her sweetest smile. "Leo! Perfect timing. Do you have a new script for me?" Leo just trembled, holding out his phone. "Everleigh," he ---- whispered, his voice cracking. "All of your investors... they've pulled out. Every single one." "WHAT?" Everleigh's scream ripped through the silent room. Her perfectly made-up face twisted into an ugly snarl. The reporters, snapping out of their stupor, descended like vultures, a frenzy of flashing lights and shouted questions. "Ms. Hooper, did you offend Mr. Foley?" "Were all your projects funded by his companies?" "Is it true you only get roles by sleeping with producers?" Everleigh's face turned a shade of sickly green. She clutched her chest, her eyes rolling back in her head, and collapsed in a dramatic faint. The next scene played out in a sterile hospital room that smelled of bleach. Everleigh woke up to see Ignatz sitting by her bed, staring into space. She immediately started crying. "Iggy, it was her! It was all Genevieve! She's trying to ruin me because she's jealous!" She tried to weave a pathetic story about how | had lied about my family, how | had trapped her poor, innocent Ignatz. She reached for his hand, but he pulled it away as if her touch burned him. She threw herself into his arms, sobbing hysterically. "If you ---- leave me, I'll kill myself, Iggy! | swear | willl!" For the first time, Ignatz looked at her with pure disgust. He shoved her away from him so forcefully that she stumbled back against the bed. "Stay away from me," he said, his voice cold and dead. He turned and walked out of the room. "Find out everything," he snarled at his assistant waiting in the hall. "Everything about Genevieve Foley. | want to know it all." As he stood there, his world crumbling, he realized with a sickening jolt that he had been married to a woman for five years, and he knew nothing about her at all. & His assistant's phone buzzed. "Sir... you need to see this." The TV in the hospital waiting room was on a major news channel. The screen showed a secretly recorded video. It was Everleigh, laughing with a portly, older man in a hotel bar. "Don't worry, darling," she was saying, stroking the man's arm. "I'll just tell Iggy the baby is his. He's so obsessed with me, he'll believe anything. We just need a rich, stupid fool to be the kid's dad, and he's the perfect candidate." The video was followed by a medical report, leaked from a private clinic, stating that Everleigh Hooper had never been diagnosed with or treated for depression or any other significant mental health issue. Her fragility was just another part of her act. ---- Ignatz staggered back, his legs giving out from under him. He collapsed into a chair, the sound of Everleigh's laughing, treacherous voice echoing in his ears.